Obama's Cliff Offer Spurned

President Barack Obama made an opening bid in budget talks with Republicans that calls for a $1.6 trillion tax increase, $50 billion in infrastructure spending in 2013 and new power to raise the federal debt limit, a provocative set of demands that Republicans said represented a step backward in efforts to avoid looming tax increases and spending cuts.

The proposal marked an opening salvo in negotiations over the fiscal cliff and represented a particularly expansive version of the White House's wish list, with a heavy...